If this attempt shall become the means of directing one solitary individual from the path of error, into that of truth, I shall consider myself richly paid for all my trouble, in altering and preparing the following sheets for the press. Most willingly do I commit them, to the overruling direction of Sovereign Wisdom, who has heretofore made use of clay and spittle, to open the eyes of the blind; and do most devoutly pray, that in his own way, and by his own means, and in his own time, he will accomplish the promised kingdom of his beloved son. AGE OF REVELATION, &c. "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes, PAINE HEAR O heavens! and give ear O earth! for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me," was the pathetic and affecting language of the elegant and truly evangelical prophet Isaiah, when addressing an highly favoured, though obstinate and sinful nation" a people loaded with iniquity-a seed of evil doers-children who were corrupted." And can there be a more pertinent address, in any other form of words, put into the English language, which would better suit an introduction to a review of a late work, made famous, from no other cause, but having been written by the author of Common Sense, and which is absurdly entitled "The Age of Reason.” There is no intrinsic merit in this work, which might entitle it to an answer; and it would undoubtedly have been consigned to perpetual oblivion, with D a thousand other profane and impious performances, had it not been from a conviction, that many young and uninformed people, wholly unacquainted with the genuine principles of our holy religion, and the subtle and dishonest practices of her apostate adversaries, had with avidity engaged in reading it. From the reputation the author had gained, by his former political writings, in this country; writings, which, from local circumstances, and the state of men's minds at the moment of an important revolution, gave celebrity to their author, the production before us has met with a more general approbation, than could otherwise have been expected.* It is in this manner, that these inefficient fragments of the writings of the last century, repeated by the late king of Prussia, Voltaire, and others, now new vamped up, with the aid of ridicule, under the title of "The Age of Reason," and this addition, "By the Author of Common Sense," though so often fully answered by learned men, are again introduced into the world, as new matter, in hopes of deceiving the ignorant and unwary, by the influence of a name. It is no new thing, for the enemies of truth and godliness, thus to descend to the meanest arts, in order ↑ "The general opinion (speaking of the influence that the pamphlet entitled "Common Sense," had among certain classes of the people), and the unanimous testimony of all the known writers upon American affairs, leave scarce room for a doubt of the fact, though for the honour of the Americans, I would most willingly call it in question.-Thomas Paine's "Common Sense," is a pamphlet just as contemptible almost throughout, just as remote from sound human sense, as all the others, by which, in later times, he has made himself a name."-Gentz's Origin and Princip. 56. The great effect which this pamphlet had on the revolution, (and it was certainly great) arose from its being written at the moment when the public mind was in a great alarm, and totally at a loss how to determine. to accomplish the horrid purpose of ruining the souls of men. As to the serious and devout Christian, who has felt the transforming power of the religion of Jesus Christ, and has experienced the internal and convincing evidence of the truth of the Divine Scriptures, the treatise referred to, will rather have a tendency to increase his faith, and inflame his fervent zeal in his master's cause, while he beholds this vain attempt, to ridicule and set at nought, the great objects of his hope and joy, by one who plainly discovers a total ignorance of every principle of truc Christianity, as revealed in the Scriptures. The vanity and confidence often produced by an appearance of superior knowledge and laborious investigation, will sometimes lead even wise men, undesignedly, into a supercilious and dogmatical mode of argumentation, on subjects, which they persuade themselves they fully comprehend: hence some apology may be made for their errors; and even the faulty manner of managing the argument may be forgiven. But, as to the performance before us, the author has proved himself to be totally ignorant of the subject he has undertaken to elucidate, not only as to the intrinsic merit of the question, but also the ideas and terms, which its advocates have been known always to hold up and use, as expressive of their sense and meaning of it. He has undertaken to explain, what he does not appear to have endeavoured, by proper investigation and consideration, to understand; and at the same time he has reviled and abused a subject of serious and solemn importance, in the estimation |